What is it like for a learner to participate in a Zoom breakout room session?

Healey-Benson, Felicity, Johnson, Michael, Adams, Catherine and Turville, Joni 2022. What is it like for a learner to participate in a Zoom breakout room session? Presented at: 13th International Conference on Networked Learning (NLC 2022), Sundsvall, Sweden, 16-18 May 2022. Published in: Jaldemark, Jimmy, Håkansson Lindqvist, Marcia, Mozelius, Peter, Öberg, Lena-Marcia, de Laat, Maarten, Bonderup Dohn, Nina and Ryberg, Thomas eds. Proceedings for the Thirteenth International Conference on Networked Learning. Mid-Sweden University: Networked Learning Conference Consortium,

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Abstract

Though virtual classrooms are not new, the COVID-19 pandemic sent many teachers and students online for the first time. This paper examines the use of a web-based video conferencing tool, Zoom, and in particular, the use of breakout rooms as part of a student’s learning experience. We ask: what is it like for a learner to participate in a Zoom Breakout Room session? Using Max van Manen’s (2016) phenomenology of practice, we collected learners’ lived experience descriptions of participating in a Zoom breakout room, then reflected on them phenomenologically as a way to generate new insights into this recently common online learning experience. Four moments are portrayed: a learner’s arrest at the announcement of breakout rooms; a learner’s transition into a breakout room as existential suspension; surveilling self and others in a breakout room; and exiting the breakout room as a moment of foreclosure and re-disorientation. The paper compares Zoom breakout rooms with aspects of videogaming and notices a detriment to Freirean problem-posing education if students can avoid standing, unmediated, behind just their words, even in the relative safety of a small group of peers.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Healthcare Sciences
Subjects:	L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Zoom video-conferencing, breakout room, phenomenology of practice, Covid-19, lived experience, presence, The Pivot, small group learning, collaborative learning
Publisher:	Networked Learning Conference Consortium
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	21 May 2022
Date of Acceptance:	18 February 2022
Last Modified:	07 Jun 2022 15:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/149933

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